At 02:14 PM 3/25/98 -0500, you wrote:
>George says:
>Has any goverment agency, like Dr. Shimanuki at ARS, Dr. Bill Wilson at
>Weslaco, Dr. Tom Rinderer at Baton Rouge or any noted research groups like
Dr.
>Nick Calderone at Cornell, Mary Ann Frazier at Penn State, Dr. Jim Tew at
Ohio
>State or any tutorial associations like EAS or ABF scientificly proven or
>endorsed the use of mineral oil?
Hi George & Bee Friends,
The real question should be do any of the above, all good people, keep bees
or make their living off of keeping bees, or just those who keep bees?
I wonder why we seem to think any academic or regulatory bee scientist
would have the time or inclination to do anything new, most have it made
or at least more to do then they want or can do now. They do their
doctorate and that's most of the time all the original thinking that's
demanded from them. Some do have to publish papers, but you will look a
long time to find one of these papers that would report on products in use
such as Mineral Oil other then the bee journals.
The use of Mineral Oil by beekeepers to control pests is really not a
question for scientists to do research on, its more a extension problem,
one of Trial and Error to be done in the field by grunt bee keepers.
>My bees do NOT get medicated without the medicine being approved by
scientific
>study.
Different strokes for different folks. Because someone holds a position in
a public agency with a high degree from another public institution does not
reflect in anyway their practical knowledge in any subject
other then time on the job and their good fortune and politics. In
beekeeping the so called bee scientist's are more times then not the last
one's to acknowledge a problem or its solution.
Bee science has had to move away from the applied world we all live in to
one of the basic study of bees because we all have for years found a
glaring deficiency in our understanding of honeybees, and of course
beekeepers can not afford to fund those applied studies at todays high
costs in the available study systems. So we have a mostly a government
regulatory scientific community directing the applied research in
beekeeping, and that suck's as little is done or ever will be. IMHO.
Some creative bee scientists have been able to fund their work outside of
the bee industry and at the same time make what they are doing interesting
and attractive to beekeepers and the public. The WWW is demonstrating a new
dimension in science for beekeeper just watch Jerry B. Bromenshenk, Ph.D.
Director, DOE/EPSCoR & Montana Organization for Research in Energy, The
University of Montana-Missoula who has been able to present basic research
in a format that interests the beekeeper and the public.
Will his papers lead to changes in applied beekeeping, maybe not, but he is
using applied beekeeping knowledge recognized by beekeepers around the
world and who knows what changes we will want to make from his own
modifications of what we do everyday.
WHAT IF?... Jerry suddenly announced he used no chemical controls for bee
pests? I wonder how many would make the switch or would we all have to wait
for the bee research to be published. I suspect we beekeepers are on the
farm chemical treadmill and will remain their for many generations to come
as only another chemical can replace a chemical that falls out of flavor
when your on that path.
>Likewise, I doubt if any of us would solicit our highly skilled meat
>market butcher to perform an appendectomy on my child because cheaper.
How true, but it also true that if I wanted to know how to cut meat I would
not look up some government meat regulator or food scientist to find out
how to do it.
>Frugality, or "guarding one's pennies" has value, but I want scientific
>endorsement of any product used to control disease or pests. The days of
>ringing bells and wrapping on pans to bring a swarm of bees to settlement is
>as obsolete as your grandmother's bustle.
I look at it a little different, history has a way of repeating itself and
those who fail to study and learn from the past are doomed to failure in
the bee business, that I believe is a fact. Many commercial beekeepers have
moved back to the old ways not always to save money but sometimes because
of new regulations.
One example of this is the chemical control of wax worms in the west. By
using inexpensive environmental controls in comb storage buildings
beekeepers not only are able to reduce their dependence on chemicals but
save considerable money in doing so and in fact do a better job of
controlling the pest.
I do not know if Mineral Oil works or will ever replace chemical controls
now the crutch so many beekeepers seem to be wedded to in the bee world. I
do know that real problems exist with using chemicals, the main one being
they do not seem to work for everybody and for every season. Its a fact
that some beekeepers do everything by the book or label and still have
horrific losses, maybe not our problem this spring but surely one in the
near past many times over.
Also you can not believe what you read in those slick chemical
advertisements or even on the label with chemical products as the so called
"inert" ingredients are subject to change for year to year.<B>
I do know how many beekeepers are actually trying or using Mineral Oil but
I do know that if a large number of beekeepers use it and don't use other
chemicals, and are able to live with it, then the bee scientists and
regulatory scientists will get interested very fast. Or they may not as
little money is involved in using this product and any effort at regulation
or registration would be a waste of someone's money, guess who's.
IMHO, if every beekeeper would try Mineral Oil and lay off some of the
other stuff that is being used today
in the bee industry behind the barn a great deal of potential danger to the
industry would be avoided and we all would be ahead and we would have many
more experiences to base our decision making on.
ttul, the OLd Drone
http://209.76.50.54
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